Roses and Butterflies
by burnthiscityxx
Summary: He shouldn't be having these thoughts and he tries his hardest to forget about them, but he can't. Because he really, really, really shouldn't be thinking about how she smells like a damn bouquet of flowers.


**Hey, everybody! Okay, so…this is my first shot at writing Teen Wolf fic, so I'm a bundle of nerves, posting this. But I really love the relationship between Allison and Isaac – it's not just a will-they, won't-they kind of thing, because you obviously have the whole supernatural aspect of it thrown in, as well. This is my first time writing any sort of fantasy fic, so bear with me – there's not a lot of werewolf lore or anything like that; I wanted to keep it sweet and simple.**

**Obviously, I don't own Teen Wolf or MTV or the characters…otherwise, we'd be back from this stupid hiatus already! :P**

**Please read and enjoy and please, please leave me a nice little comment/review! I'd really appreciate it! Xoxo.**

* * *

_It's a thrill I can't shake.  
Yeah, I know we've been writing a mistake,  
but it's hard to erase the feelings I've drawn.  
I was caught in an awkward silence,  
broken down by the sound of your prelude that you played  
to open our symphony.  
I've been sleeping with the sunrise watching hours pass away.  
Incidentally, I'm just waiting for the dusk to kill the day.  
_Roses and Butterflies; Making April

She smells like roses.

It's a strange observation – he knows that – but it pops into his head randomly one day when he's attacking her from behind. She thrashes around in his grip and when her hair tickles his nose and her neck is left all exposed and she's squealing…it's enough to drive Isaac mad. He shouldn't be having these thoughts and he tries his hardest to forget about them, but he can't. Because he really, really, _really_ shouldn't be thinking about how she smells like a damn bouquet of flowers.

"You could use a little more force, you know," she says, half an hour later, her voice all tentative and hesitant. She packs away her daggers with ease, flipping them over with a flick of her wrist and he swears it's one of the sexiest things he's ever seen anybody do. When he doesn't answer, she looks up at him; determination in her dark brown eyes, and repeats herself for the millionth time,

"I can handle it."

Isaac scoffs. Those four words have become her motto these past few months and he thinks it's all sorts of ridiculous – Allison Argent is one of the strongest girls he knows, and that includes Cora and Kali in their werewolf form. But he doesn't want to get into it with her (even if he really…_wants to_ _get into it with her_), so he mumbles, "I know."

There's a look she gives him – part surprise, part satisfaction – and then it's gone. They both know these moments shouldn't exist between them, because there are a million reasons why it's wrong and why it could never happen. Instead, they dance their way around each other and make sure their eyes don't meet when Scott calls them in for reinforcements. It's the oldest dance in the world, but it works for them – somewhat.

She packs up her daggers and he waits until she puts them away in her closet. As always, she offers him a drink and he shakes his head, because the longer he stays, the more dangerous it gets. Instead, he leaves out her window, his fingers brushing against hers softly, before he jumps down from the roof and jogs down the street, away from her house.

He's left with the faint, fragrant scent of roses and that's all.

* * *

Spring Break in Beacon Hills is quiet. With Derek and Cora gone, Scott and Stiles decide to embark on a road trip, which leaves Isaac in the dust. He's trying to be alright with it, but the Beta in him wants to follow the Alpha. But really, he's learned to deal with disappointment, so he's just lucky that he's allowed to come and go as he pleases at the McCall house and that Melissa doesn't ask too many questions.

Especially when night time comes around.

He doesn't know how or why or when it starts, but he's painfully aware of it when he wakes up screaming. Drenched in his own sweat and panting, his limbs are twisted in damp sheets and more than once, he has to clamp his teeth down on the back of his hand to keep the screams quiet. He doesn't want to worry Melissa or Scott or Derek – wherever he is – because these nightmares shouldn't be happening anymore. They officially stopped when he joined Derek's pack and aside from that night in the motel, the dreams haven't been bothering him. But lately, and he doesn't know why, they're back with a vengeance.

It all starts the same way. Standing in an all-white corridor, his breathing quickens, and it's like he's racing against time to get more air in his lungs. The faster he inhales and exhales, the faster the walls start to close in, until they're pushing against his shoulders and there's literally nothing he can do to stop it, except curl into himself.

When he wakes up from sleep, it's never good, so he does the one thing he knows – he runs.

There's silence and peace in the woods. He knows it's dangerous and if Scott and Derek were here, they'd tell him to stop immediately, but they're not here, they _left_. So Isaac's going to sit at the edge of the forest, his legs dangling over the short cliff, his eyes scanning Beacon Hills, at least until his heart slows down to a normal pace. It's cold and dark out, but he likes it – there's nobody here to bother him and there's just so much space.

Until she comes.

She's quiet too, her footsteps hesitant and slow, as if she knows she's creeping in on some private moment. But Isaac knows her too well and recognizes her scent immediately – roses, soft and pretty, just like she is. She sits next to him, her legs dangling off the edge of the forest, wiping her hands on the front of her jeans. Together, they look out at Beacon Hills, their small town all lit up. A year and a half ago, Isaac would've never called it a safe place and Allison would've never called it a home.

"It's so…contained," she says, her voice wavering.

He nods, but doesn't say or do anything more. He wants to tell her about the nightmares, he wants to tell her about living at the McCall's without his Alpha, he wants to tell her the moonlight is tracing her features perfectly – but he doesn't. There's a huge chasm between the two of them, invisible, but still there. It's Scott and Stiles and Lydia and hell, even the twins. It's everybody who's fighting against them; everything that's going to come at them in the next few months, because they know it's stupid to think that life in Beacon Hills is always going to be like this – pristine, quiet, and calm.

But he can't help himself. It's the smell of roses; it's the way her shoulder brushes against his leather jacket, the way her legs swing back and forth against the rocks. It's the way her breath hitches when he moves an inch closer – he tells himself it's to keep warm from the night air, but something deep in the corners of his heart knows it's something more.

They don't say anything else. But for the next few minutes, sitting next to each other, their hearts beating in time, Isaac forgets all about the nightmares that brought him to the edge of the forest.

* * *

Lydia throws a party after Spring Break, as a welcome-home to Scott and Stiles. It's ridiculously trivial in every single way, but with the last few months they've had, it makes weirdly perfect sense. So when Isaac strolls in and finds half of the guests already drunk, he just smirks a little – it's so quintessentially _normal_ that it reminds him that despite everything that's going on…they're all still just high school teenagers.

He catches up with Scott and sticks close for most of the night. Stiles is panting after Lydia, who disappears halfway through the party. Had that happened a few months ago, they'd be worried out of their minds, but Lydia has the routine down perfectly – she loudly announces that she and one of the Alpha twins are going to be in her room and that nobody should bother them. If the look on Stiles' face wasn't so heart-breaking, Isaac would've laughed at the whole thing.

Instead, he just claps a hand on Stiles' shoulder and mutters a couple of words of encouragement.

A half hour later, when Lydia finally emerges from her room and Stiles' heart is already back to normal, Isaac saunters into the kitchen to find Allison and Scott. It's not a compromising position they're in; they're just really close and talking in whispers. Neither of them recognize that Isaac's in the room (or anybody else, for that matter), and he can't really explain why, but his heart takes a dive and his blood starts to burn. Scott traces the outline of Allison's cheek and Isaac feels a fire in his stomach that he tries to supress – it's not that he can't attack Scott for whatever reason, it's that physically, he shouldn't want to.

_Scott is the Alpha._

Isaac can't think straight and he's seeing red, but there's a part of his brain (which sounds like Derek), telling him to just calm down. When that doesn't work, the voice starts to tell him to walk away and with that, Isaac pulls back his claws and storms out of the house, pushing past the twins and Lydia and Stiles and the fifty other people who are having a bloody good time.

He doesn't know why it makes him angry. He shouldn't want her, because he can't have her. It doesn't matter how many times their lips come close or how soft and vulnerable she feels under his arms when he pins her down, or how she chases the cold steel of her blade with the warm, feather-light touch of her fingertips against his neck. It doesn't matter that she makes him feel like he belongs, like he finally has a _home_.

Because Scott isn't only the Alpha – he's also the ex-boyfriend.

* * *

A week later, Allison catches up with him after their Advanced Chemistry class, her breath coming out in short puffs. She clutches her textbooks tightly and her boots make rhythmic clicks against the floor, and he's trying really hard to ignore her. They haven't spoken much since Lydia's party and he knows it's out of nowhere, but he's avoiding her as much as he can – there's something in him that physically freezes when she's around.

"Quit walking so fast," she giggles, leaning against the locker beside his. "Your legs are longer than mine,"

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"Did I do something?"

Isaac stops, one hand inside his locker, and turns to look at her. He probably shouldn't, but her dark brown eyes are searching his and she's leaning forward, all eager and trusting. Roses…those _damn_ _roses_.

"No," he says curtly. Silence falls between them and it's awkward for a beat – until he just sighs and closes his locker door. "I'm sorry. It's just been a rough day,"

Allison nods, her feet shuffling anxiously. "Do you feel like hanging out? I haven't practiced with the daggers lately,"

Without even thinking of the consequences, Isaac says yes. He doesn't know how or why he's so pulled in by her – for God's sake, she tried to actually kill him once. But when she begs him to drive her car because she's exhausted, he just nods politely. A part of him wonders, while they're cruising down empty roads towards her house, what Scott would think. It had been his idea to have Isaac watch over Allison, but somehow, that excuse doesn't seem concrete enough to justify the way Isaac's heart pounds out of his chest every time he's with her.

"Oh, I guess my dad's not home," she points out, getting out of the car. Isaac kills the engine and steps out onto the Argent driveway cautiously – he's used to jumping off the roof and climbing in and out of the windows, not actually walking through the front door. Still, Allison leads the way and he follows her, hands tucked into his pockets, his leather jacket crackling every so often.

"Just hang out here for a bit, I'll get the daggers," Allison says, heading toward the stairs. She stops midway, turns around, and tilts her head at him, a smile curling her lips.

"What?" he asks, leaning against the wall, an eyebrow raised. He can't stop the playful smirk that creeps up on him – she's adorable and deadly and it's the weirdest, most wonderful combination he can think of.

"It just sounds really weird, doesn't it?" she giggles.

Her laugh hits him like a ton of bricks and he's stunned – she's never seemed so beautiful to him as she does now, running up the stairs, free and unhinged.

* * *

He's helping Scott with his SAT vocabulary, when the subject finally comes up – Allison Argent. Her name is like poison in the McCall household, mostly because Scott's still hurting over their breakup and Isaac…well, he just doesn't want to talk about it. But the topic of her couldn't be skirted around forever and she was bound to pop up eventually.

"Do you think she's seeing someone?" Scott asks, in between pull-ups.

Isaac pauses, his finger hovered over the computer mouse. He wants to say yes, wants Scott to move on (so he can move in? It's complicated). Instead, he gives a little shake of his head. "Maybe she just wants to be single," he shrugs.

"I don't think so," Scott swings off the bar and lands on his feet gracefully. "I overheard her and Lydia talking – apparently there's someone she's interested in,"

"Oh?"

"Yeah, but she says it won't work out. Something about outside forces being against it," Scott shrugs and grabs a towel from his closet. "I guess it'd be alright, you know? She's allowed to do her own thing,"

He strolls into the bathroom to take a shower and Isaac stares at the closed door, dumbfounded. His heart starts to pound really fast and even though it's a far reach, maybe there's a chance it could work. Maybe all the coy smiles and the time they spent training, their fingers brushing against each other's accidentally and on purpose…maybe they were all a part of something bigger.

Maybe.

* * *

Derek comes back to Beacon Hills with Cora and they don't bring any good news – instead, it's like wherever Derek goes, bad luck follows. And it just so happens that this time, it's their town that's about to be terrorized.

Again.

Which is why they're all gathered in the McCall living room, trying to devise a strategy to defeat some unknown killer on the loose – one whose modus operandi isn't as consistent as the other monsters they've faced before. There's something weirdly random about this one and it's obviously leading to some tension in the room. Before Isaac can even get a word in edgewise, Cora, Derek, Scott, Stiles, the twins, and even Lydia are all yelling over one another. One's talking about finding patterns, the other is trying to convince the group to use telepathy, and Derek…well, he just wants to find whatever it is and kill it.

Hearing them all argue is enough to drive a person insane, so Isaac slips out the front door quietly – it's not like he's needed much. All he needs to do is show up when they want him to and do whatever they ask of him. Until then, he's just going to lean against the front porch railings and sit comfortably on the steps, and try to get his werewolf urges under control. It's been a while since he's lashed out at something – the last time he did it, Scott had been the one to stop him from tearing into one of the twins. Every once in a while, the Beta in him starts to shake his common ground and there's a need to just claw something to death. It's unhealthy, but it is what it is.

"You haven't got any ideas to contribute to the great debate?"

Her voice wakes him from thought, soft and gentle, sweet and sarcastic, all at the same time. She sits down next to him, no questions asked, and he's immediately comforted by her presence. He shouldn't be, though, especially not with Scott and Derek just a few meters inside the house.

"It'll be those two battling it out until Scott wins and we all just play the waiting game," he shrugs, offering his two cents. His response causes Allison to tilt her head back and giggle – it's a sound Isaac can definitely get used to hearing.

"Why aren't you in there?" he asks, shifting a little closer. She doesn't flinch and he keeps that in mind.

Allison shrugs and rests her chin in the palms of her hands. "They just tell me who to shoot and I do it," she chuckles. There's a beat of silence, before she speaks again, this time, more contemplative than before. "Do you ever think that this is it? Like…this is just what life's going to be like from now on?"

"I suppose we'll have to graduate sometime soon,"

She laughs again, bumping her shoulder against his and the touch makes a shock of electricity run down his spine. "I just don't want to look back at my life and find that it's all just…hunting down monsters,"

Isaac smirks and bumps his own shoulder against hers. "You're an Argent – it's in your blood,"

"I guess I just wish it could all slow down a little. It's hard enough, trying to protect your family's honor with a bow and arrow – add in school and hor…" she trails off, midsentence, her cheeks coloring with embarrassment.

"Hormones?" he chuckles. "Somehow, I don't think you have trouble keeping that in check,"

Allison pulls back, confusion etched across her pretty, delicate features. "Am I supposed to be offended?"

"No, I just meant…there's nobody you're really into, right?" Isaac stutters, his words falling out of his mouth in a mess of apologies and nerves. He can't believe he's actually saying this, that a part of him really wants to even know about that part of her life – they've never touched on it before.

She twists a strand of her hair around her finger, tugging on it forcefully in thought. Silence falls between the two of them and for the next several, long minutes; the only sound they hear is the distant crickets and the soft discussion from inside the McCall house. It's nice out, warm enough to not wear a jacket, but cold enough that it's not sweltering hot. Isaac's not sure when Beacon Hills started to feel like home, but being a werewolf, sitting on the McCall front porch with his Alpha's ex-girlfriend, who just so happened to be a werewolf-hunter…it adds up perfectly.

"Can I ask you something? Something sort of…personal?" Allison's voice cuts through the night and Isaac nods back at her. "How strong is the bond between an Alpha and a Beta? I mean, are you guys tethered to one another?"

He snorts back a laugh, trying to be graceful. "No, nothing like that. I just have a…pull towards the Alpha. What he says, goes,"

"So hypothetically…you would do everything the Alpha says?"

"I guess," he shrugs. "I like to think I have some sort of control over it, though. We're a pack and we stick together and there's a hierarchy, but I get to…you know, do my own thing,"

"So…"

"So…"

She takes a deep breath and shakes her head, as if gathering the courage to speak. Straightening up and turning to face him, her eyes burn with a low intensity he's never seen before – softer than when she's holding a dagger, but harder than when she's determined to hurt someone.

"I'm going to do something and I really, really hope you won't get angry, okay?" she asks.

Isaac nods, opens his mouth to say something, but before a sound escapes, her lips are on his. And it's unexpected and unpredictable, but it's sweet and wonderful, and literally everything's he's dreamed about since their first training session. She tastes like mint and cherries and her fingers play with the strands of hair at the end of his neck and he just wants to breathe in roses forever.


End file.
